HB 809: would prohibit the sale of large capacity magazines
(with stated exceptions).

HB 812: would require background checks for all firearms
transfers.

HB 823: would permit background checks for firearms
transfers at gun shows if one of the parties to the transfer requested one.

None of these bills will become law this session. In fact,
none of these bills will ever be voted on by the House of Delegates. Why?

Have you ever gone to the General Assembly website and
looked at that tutorial that tells “How a bill becomes a law?” There is a step
in there entitled “Committee studies bill.” It says “The committee studies the
bill to see if it would make a good law.” The next step is entitled “Bill is
reported.” It reads “If the committee agrees the bill would make good law, the
committee reports the results to the House or the Senate.”

Well, trusted reader, I need to inform you that the General
Assembly has not been entirely truthful in educating the public on how a bill
becomes a law, or more to the point, how a bill does NOT become a law. It’s not
that the tutorial doesn’t tell the truth. It’s that it doesn’t tell the whole
truth. It doesn’t mention that under House rules the majority party in the
House of Delegates decides the makeup of the various House standing committees.
It doesn’t mention that the standing committees may set up subcommittees to
more efficiently deal with their load of bills. It doesn’t mention that one of
the House committees—the Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety (MPPS)—contains
fifteen Republican members and seven Democratic members. It doesn’t mention
that the MPPS is divided into three subcommittees. It also doesn’t mention that
Subcommittee #1 contains four Republicans and only one Democrat. And it also doesn’t
mention that all firearms bills are routinely referred to Subcommittee #1. And
finally, it doesn’t mention that under House and parliamentary rules, the 4
Republican members of MPPS Subcommittee #1 can prevent any legislation from
ever reaching the floor of the House of Delegates, and they can do so without
ever having a recorded vote. And that, dear reader, is what happened to all of
the bills I described above.

But, Maven, what do
you mean by without a vote. Surely, the subcommittee must vote.

Subcommittee #1 took action by voice vote. How does that
work? Motion to table, seconded, all in favor say “aye”, all opposed say “nay,”
the ayes have it. And what is reported in the official record? “Subcommittee
recommends laying on the table by voice vote.” It is not reported how
individual members of the subcommittee voted. So, in theory, we can never hold
any of those delegates accountable for their vote. Or can we?

We do know who the members of the subcommittee are. And we
can infer how they voted (assuming of course that the chair actually counted
the ayes and nays). So let me introduce you to the members of MPPS Subcommittee
#1. First the Democrat—Del. Roslyn C. Taylor of the 75th District.
And the Republicans—Del. Thomas C. Wright, Jr., of the 61st District
(chair of the subcommittee); Del. C. Matthew Fariss of the 59th
District; Del. C. Todd Gilbert of the 15th District; Del. Michael J.
Webert of the 18th District. Although I certainly cannot prove it, I
am quite certain that Del. Taylor voted “nay” on the voice votes to put these
bills to sleep. Likewise, I am quite certain that Del. Wright, Fariss, Gilbert
and Webert all voted to kill these bills.

In the state-wide election this past November the three
candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general who favored
reasonable gun control legislation were elected. Those who opposed such legislation
were defeated. However, that is irrelevant because Wright, Fariss, Gilbert and
Webert said NO. Polls show that most Virginians favor reasonable firearms
control legislation (like the bills described above). Too bad! Wright, Fariss,
Gilbert and Webert said NO. Hundreds of Virginians, including family members of
people who were murdered by firearm at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007,
demonstrate at the Virginia Capitol in favor of responsible gun legislation
(like the bills above). Pity! Wright, Fariss, Gilbert and Webert said NO. The
Virginia Senate may pass legislation similar to the bills above. But, when they
come to the House on crossover day, Wright, Fariss, Gilbert and Webert will
again say NO.

But, Maven, isn’t it
unfair that four men on one subcommittee can block the will of a majority of
the people in Virginia?

Yes, reader, it is unfair. It is also undemocratic (not to
be confused with unDemocratic). And it is “unrepublican.” In a republican form
of government, which the Commonwealth is supposed to be, I would expect that
more times than not the majority would decide what is the proper policy to be
followed. Yet, because of the actions of Wright, Farris, Gilbert and Webert, we
will never even know what the majority is because those four gentlemen will not
allow a vote in the House on any restrictive firearms legislation.

So, what can we do? We need to put the spotlight and the
heat on Wright, Farris, Gilbert and Webert. We need to publicize their actions
every time they effectively kill reasonable firearms bills. We need to lobby
them heavily. We need to make sure that everybody in the Commonwealth knows how
these four men continuously block the will of the people. We need to work
against the political gerrymandering that allowed three of these “no” men to
run unopposed in the last election. Let us not forget the names of these four
unknowns: Thomas Wright of Victoria; Matt Fariss of Rustburg; Todd Gilbert of
Woodstock; and Michael Webert of Marshall

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

This maven has said nothing about the ongoing dispute here
in Richmond over Mayor Dwight Jones’ plan for the redevelopment of the Shockoe
Bottom area of the city, which centers on a new minor league baseball stadium.
I have been silent mainly because I am split on this issue, sort of like the
population of Richmond. I think the vicinity of the existing stadium (the
Diamond) would be a better place for a new stadium, but my preference is not
that strong. I also have serious questions whether the taxpayers of Richmond
should pay for a stadium for a privately-owned entity. But, we subsidize other
businesses to keep them in Richmond so why is a new stadium that different? I
am also strongly swayed by those of my African American friends who argue that
placing a stadium so close to where so many thousands of African slaves were
imprisoned and sold as property (and where many of them died and were buried)
is a disgrace to their memory. However, although I know what these friends
don’t want, I have not been able to figure out what they do want other than a
slogan that calls for an “historic district”. I think that we in Richmond
should be forever mindful of the outrageous activities that went on in Shockoe
Bottom for so many decades. But I am not sure this necessarily means that the
area must remain forever as it is. And, on my third “other hand,” I am aware
that the City of Richmond badly needs to expand its tax base. So, with this
internal ambiguity, what was a maven to say?

For the world outside of Richmond (and for you Richmonders
who have been hibernating for the last few months)—some time past (I am too
lazy to do the research to give you exact dates but exact dates are not
important) the mayor of our beloved city, Dwight Jones, revealed to all of us a
plan for the total revitalization of Shockoe Bottom. His plan included a new
baseball stadium, a hotel, a supermarket, apartment buildings and a structure
memorializing the slave trade that went on in the area in the 18th
and 19th centuries. The plan was complete with artist renderings and
financial statements. The mayor described his plan as essential to the
revitalization of the Shockoe area, as well as vital to the economic expansion
of the city. The mayor’s Shockoe plan was strongly connected to a more vaguely
described plan to develop the area along the Boulevard where the Diamond now
stands into a major commercial and residential neighborhood. A close
examination of the Shockoe plan showed that its financial success counted on
revenue from the Boulevard development. The mayor’s plan met both with very
strong support and very strong opposition.

The mayor’s plan cannot be implemented without the approval
of the Richmond City Council. In fact, because it requires the sale of city
owned property, the plan needs a super-majority to pass. Like the residents of
the city, members of the council are divided on the plan. The eventual outcome
will depend on those council members who have not yet decided. Although the
mayor and his supporters have called the Shockoe plan an all or nothing
proposition and have called for quick approval by the council, the council has
been very deliberate, asking questions and holding neighborhood meetings for
public input.

This week, probably out of frustration that his proposal has
not gained quick approval by the City Council, Mayor Jones raised the stakes.
As reported in the Richmond Free Press 1
and repeated in the Richmond Times Dispatch 2at a prayer meeting commemorating the issuance of the Emancipation
Proclamation, the mayor said that the City of Richmond is “still 50%
African-American” but there is now a majority on the City Council “that doesn’t
look like us.” The mayor implied that those white members of the council who
don’t back his plan do not care about creating jobs for African-Americans. The
mayor’s attempt to turn this dispute into a racial issue is particularly
strange because the most vocal opponents of his development plan come from the
African-American community. If it turns out that the City Council does not
approve Mayor Jones’ plan, he may regret that he suggested that some of them
may be racists.

The mayor may also regret the way that he has tried to
implement this project. As I understand it, the mayor did not involve the City
Council, as a body, in the formation of the plan. After being mayor for nearly
five years, and having been reelected to a second term by a substantial
majority, Mr. Jones seems to have forgotten that under the City’s charter it is
the City Council, not the mayor, that is the governing body of the City of
Richmond. Under the charter, the mayor is responsible “for the proper
administration of city government.” He is also has several other specified responsibilities
including preparing a proposed city budget for the council’s consideration. But,
he is not the government. If I were a member of the City Council I would be
jealous of the council’s governing authority and I just might be resentful when
the mayor tells me that his plan is an all or nothing proposition and that my
only options are to vote “yes” or “no.” Further, it would have made political
sense to get council members involved in the planning for the Shockoe
development. People who feel they have contributed to the formulation of a plan
are not likely to oppose it when it comes up for a vote.

The Shockoe Bottom development plan will probably come onto
the City Council’s agenda later this month. If the plan passes, the mayor needs
to reach out to those who oppose a stadium in the former slave trading area by
making sure that the structure commemorating this dark period in our history is
one of the first to be built. He should also take the initiative in making sure
that the entire area of the city from the old Manchester Docks along the slave
trail up to Broad Street be designated a National Historic District. If the
plan is defeated, the mayor and City Council need to get together quickly and
create a new plan to redevelop the Shockoe Bottom area.

Saturday, January 11, 2014

First a disclaimer—I don’t want to write this. As I said
earlier this week, I do not like to write anything that is related to the Civil
War. Anything I write will necessarily be divisive and this country is divided
enough. And as someone who will always be a guest here in Richmond because I
was born somewhere else, I know it’s not polite to say things that may upset
your hosts. But, I didn’t start this. This was started by the editorial writers
in the Richmond Times-Dispatch when they printed “What’s in a name?” in Thursday’s
paper.
The TD Opinion is in response to an attempt by citizens in Arlington County to
remove the name of Jefferson Davis from the roads and streets of their county.
I assume they are trying to change the name of Jefferson Davis Highway.

After setting forth these facts and pointing out how
contentious such attempt will be, the TD editors say,

Advocates
of stripping Davis’ name can make a good case that, whatever his merits, he
represented a cause tainted with the stain of slavery — and, so far as the
United States is concerned, with treason — that has no business receiving honor
today.

Excuse me: “so far as the United States is concerned?!” TD
editors, do you live in a different country than the rest of us? Last time I
checked, this is the United States. And yes, Virginia, Mr. Davis represented a
cause more than “tainted” with treason. By stating this issue as primarily
related to slavery--which even we in Richmond, after 150 years, can now
acknowledge as being not particularly brotherly—and putting the treason issue
as a parenthetical that only concerns “the United States” the TD editors
are trying to hide the real heart of this issue.

In the next paragraph the TD editors roll out the nuclear
option. Through the use of a clever segue they turn this into a threat to our
precious Monument Avenue. In their words, “To say Davis does not merit honoring is to imply that those
statues [on Monument Avenue] should all be torn down.” Hey editors, relax.
Those trying to change the name of Jeff Davis highway in Arlington are not
going to come marching down I-95 to wreak havoc on our most famous thoroughfare.*

Now
that they created the issue, the TD editors go on to defend our monuments:

Unlike
certain later developments, those monuments were not erected in defiance of the
civil-rights struggle for black equality in the 1960s. Their raising was meant
to honor that which was honorable about the South, and to tear them down would
be to repudiate not only everything bad about the Confederacy but also
everything good as well.

So,
erecting Richmond’s statutes of J.E.B. Stuart, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis,
and Stonewall Jackson on what became Monument Avenue was meant to honor “that
which was honorable about the South.” And, so that we can get back to the
beginning point of the Opinion, I must assume that the action of our General
Assembly in 1922 specifying that the Jefferson Davis Highway in Virginia ran from
the Fourteenth Street Bridge in Arlington to the North Carolina border near
Clarksville, Virginia, was also meant to honor that which was honorable about
the South.**

Well
pardon me if I disagree that Stuart, Lee, Davis and Jackson (as well as AP Hill
whose monument didn’t make it to the Avenue) were that which was “honorable”
about the South. I realize that all of these men faced difficult decisions when
their states purported to secede from the United States. I know that General
Lee was heartbroken. I just read that he initially promised to never take up
arms either against the Federal Government or Virginia. I have also read that
Jefferson Davis cried when he made his farewell speech in the United States
Senate. Yet all but one of these men did decide to take up arms against the
United States. And, Davis would have taken up arms if he were not elected
President of the Confederacy. He would have much preferred to lead troops
against his country.

With
the exception of Jackson, who was a teacher at the Virginia Military Academy,
these men were all officers of the United States at the beginning of 1861—Lee,
Stuart and Hill were in the United States Army, Davis served in the United
States Senate. All of them had taken an oath to support and protect the
Constitution of the United States. Within months, all of them had violated
their oaths by abandoning their allegiance to the United States and joining an
insurrection against it. If what these men did was honorable, we need to start changing
our thinking about Benedict Arnold.

Moreover,
the conduct of all of our honorable Confederates amounted to treason under the
United States Constitution. The Constitution defines treason quite clearly:

“Treason
against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or
in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

Lee,
Jackson, Stuart and Hill all participated directly in levying war against the
United States. They led military groups that killed thousands of United States
soldiers. Davis, although he may not have participated directly in military
actions, was the Chief Executive Officer of the insurrection that called itself
the Confederate States of America. Although they were never convicted of
treason, this fact does not change the nature of their conduct.

After
rejecting the removal of the monuments, the TD comes up with their solution:

A wiser way to affirm contemporary values, perhaps, is to continue
striving to ensure that statutes, roadway names, and other landmarks and
insignia embrace the full panoply of the state’s diversity. The monument to
women of Virginia history that will soon rise in Richmond’s Capitol Square –
perhaps the first such monument of its type in the country – points the proper
way.

I
certainly support this statement, especially because nobody (except the TD)
seems to be considering destroying Monument Avenue. It’s not just a matter of affirming
“contemporary values.” It would be a great idea for the City of Richmond to
recognize the entirety of its long history, not just the years 1861 through
1865.

This
brings me back to Jefferson Davis Highway. I support the citizens of Arlington.
It is time for the General Assembly to reverse its action of 1922 and allow
local jurisdictions to decide whether they want to continue to honor Jefferson
Davis. In Richmond, I think the wonderful monument honoring Davis on the Avenue
as well as the equally moving statute at his grave in Hollywood Cemetery are sufficient
honors for a man like Davis. It’s time to change the name of those sections of
U.S. Route 1 in Richmond that still bear his name to something that is more
consistent with “contemporary values.” And, while we’re at it, do we really
need a Robert E. Lee Bridge?

*The TD
alarmism is like that of the National Rifle Association, which insists that even
though the government claims it only wants to require background checks on
those purchasing guns its true intent is to confiscate every gun in the
country. It also resembles the statement in South Carolina’s secession document
in 1860 that one of its reasons for attempting to leave the Union was that the
Republican government in Washington intended to launch a war to free all the
slaves.

Thursday, January 09, 2014

It is Sunday afternoon. I am pulling out of the Saint
James-Beth Ahabah parking lot onto an alley between Franklin and Grace Streets.
At the intersection with Ryland Street, I look left to check for traffic and I
see what appears to be a police car coming down the street. I am wondering
whether it is one of the old white Richmond police cars or the new black ones.
I soon discover that it is a Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) police car.
I wait for it to pass and then turn right on Ryland. I find myself wondering about
the jurisdiction of the VCU police. The police car turns left on Franklin
Street and I do the same, making sure that I don’t do anything that resembles a
traffic violation. Just before Harrison Street, the police car pulls over and
seems to park. I pass him and make a picture-perfect right onto Harrison.

As I drive south on Harrison I sense that the police car is
again behind me. And, its lights are flashing. Since I have been driving
perfectly, I know it is not me it is after; so I slow down to let it pass. It
slows down too, and it is getting clear that it is me it is flashing. I pull
over and park. It parks about two car lengths behind me. Then, nothing. About
two minutes pass and I am thinking maybe I am wrong. It’s not me it is after. I
get out of my car and walk toward the police car to find out what is going on.
And then I hear what I have heard hundreds of times before on TV and in the
movies—“Sir, get back in your car.”

Soon, a young police officer appears at my window (at my
age, almost everybody looks young). I roll down my window. “Do you know why I
pulled you over?” This is getting to be more and more a police melodrama. He
tells me—“Your registration is expired and you are overdue on your inspection.”
He’s gotta be kidding. Nobody is stupid enough to let both those things happen.
He asks for my driver’s license and goes back to his car.

I start searching my glove box. I find many pink inspection
receipts. 2005, 2008, 2010, several with dates I cannot read. I look up at the
inspection sticker on the windshield. It reads 10/2013. And it dawns on me that
this 2014. The registration I find ends June 30, 2013. Guess what? It is
me that is stupid enough to let both these things happen. But, I don’t remember
getting a renewal notice from the DMV. If I had I would have renewed on line.
The officer is back.

He asks me to sign two (2) citations. He explains to me that
my signature is not an admission of guilt. He explains that if I want to pay
these without challenge there is a phone number to call. He also explains that
I can go to court to challenge the tickets. He speculates that the registration
is six months late so a judge probably won’t let me off. But, he says, the
inspection is only two months late and maybe a judge will be lenient. He is
talking a lot. Maybe he wants to be my friend. When he finally leaves the side
of my car, I am feeling guilty for having ruined his Sunday afternoon by
forcing him to write me two tickets.

On Monday I go to the DMV. Seventy something bucks for a two
year registration. (Maybe this will encourage my 2004 Camry to last that long).
Then off to Allen Tire for the inspection. They call me back. “Your battery is
marginal. You also need your cooling system flushed. It is going to be
sub-freezing tomorrow so you better get these done.” I reluctantly agree. Later
I pick up my car--$336.65. As I am driving home, I notice that my check-engine
light has gone on. I am seeing more and more money flowing out of the bank. Don’t
they know that me and the maveness are on fixed incomes?

And, I am daydreaming. I bet my great grandfather never had
these problems. Of course, I never knew my great grandfather. All I know about
him is that he died in the Russian Empire before 1912 (That’s when my
grandfather came to this country). I don’t know what he did for a living. I don’t
know if he ever saw a car. So, as happens in reverie, I invent an imaginary
great grandfather who just happened to live in Richmond, Virginia. He happened
to own a horse, which he used to get him around town. He never had to register
his horse every year to keep it on the roads. He never had to get it inspected
for safety. He had to feed it and take care of it. And when it got old and its
arthritic knees kept it from even walking, he could take it out to Henrico and
shoot it in the head to put it out of its misery. As for me, I have no horse. I
have that 2004 Camry that is eating away at my limited resources. But I have
some Facebook friends, probably living in Henrico, who are gun toters. Just one
bullet in the head and 2004 Camry would be out of its misery. And me? I would
have new-car payments.

Wednesday, January 08, 2014

It has been years since I have commented on a letter to the
editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Generally, I am in total disagreement
with the conservative views expressed (I would never suggest that the TD is
biased in choosing which letters to publish) and I see no purpose in spending
time in an argument that neither side will win. There have been only a few
instances in which I felt it was necessary to say something. And with the
advent of Facebook and Twitter, it’s a lot easier to comment in those media. In
addition, I hate to write again about the Confederate States of America. I am
certainly not a Civil War historian and it would be hard to continue serving as
a maven if people thought I had become an expert only on the unpleasantness of
the early 1860s. Two consecutive articles on the same subject area raise that
risk. But the letter that the TD editors entitled “South was fighting for
self-determination” in yesterday’s paper sparked my interest.

This all grows out of a dispute that has been going on since
the 150 year anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s famous speech delivered at the
Gettysburg National Cemetery in 1863. It seems that some people want to
challenge the generally accepted view that Lincoln’s remarks constituted a
great speech and an essential United States historical document. Specifically,
the letter yesterday asserted that previous letter writers defending Lincoln’s
speech had not rebutted the accusation by H. L. Mencken that 1. The Gettysburg
speech was “oratory, not logic; beauty not sense” and that 2. Lincoln falsely
indicated that Union soldiers were fighting for self-determination, when
actually Confederate soldiers were.

Mencken, who was popular about a century ago, was a pretty
good writer and a critic of other’s use of the English language. He was also curmudgeonlier
than even this maven.*

Although at one time I had memorized it, yesterday I looked
back at the text of the Gettysburg Address to make sure I knew of what I speak.
And I must wonder what this dispute is all about. Nowhere in his remarks did
Lincoln talk of any soldier fighting for “self-determination”. In the second
paragraph (I am looking at the so-called “Bliss Copy”—one of five existing
versions of the speech) Lincoln said, “We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We
have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for
those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.” Lincoln refers to
Union soldiers as having died to preserve the United States; he doesn’t mention
self-determination. In the last paragraph, Lincoln refers to the Union dead
buried at Gettysburg as having fought and died to assure that the United States
“shall not perish from the earth.” Again he does not mention
self-determination.

So where does “self-determination” come from? It was Mencken who equated
Lincoln’s statement that Union soldiers fought and died at Gettysburg to
preserve the “government of the people, by the people, for the people”
as being equivalent to saying they were fighting for “self-determination.” After
that, Mencken went on the attack:

“The Union soldiers in that battle actually fought against
self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their
people to govern themselves. What was the practical effect of the battle of
Gettysburg? What else than the destruction of the old sovereignty of the
States, i.e., of the people of the States? The Confederates went into
battle free; they came out with their freedom subject to the supervision and
veto of the rest of the country—and for nearly twenty years that veto was so
effective that they enjoyed scarcely more liberty, in the political sense, than
so many convicts in the penitentiary.”

Aside from his lapses in logic (1- fighting to preserve the
Union is equivalent to fighting for self-determination; 2- sovereignty of the
states is the same as sovereignty of the people living in them), Mencken is
espousing an argument that the states had total sovereignty before it was taken
away by the Union in the Civil War. He is also railing against Reconstruction.

I have mixed emotions about Reconstruction. But I can’t
agree with Mencken that from 1865 to 1876 (not quite Mencken’s 20 years) all
the people in the states that had attempted to secede from the nation had as
little liberty as “so many convicts in the penitentiary.”

As to
his state sovereignty argument:

1-
The states in the United States have never had total sovereignty. They were
always subject to a constitution that said:

This Constitution, and the Laws
of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties
made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall
be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound
thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”

2- Mencken forgets that the
major attribute of supposed state sovereignty that caused the southern states
to secede from the United States and to precipitate the Civil War revolved
around the practice of owning other human beings (a practice I suggest has
little to do with “self-determination”). In justifying their secessions, the
southern states basically asserted three things that were causing them to
separate from the United States: a- the inability of their citizens who were slave-owners
to emigrate to western territories and take their slaves with them; b- the
failure of some northern states to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law; and c- their
belief that a Republican federal government would inevitably launch a war to
deprive them of their human chattel.

Neither you nor I will ever know
the motivation of individual soldiers fighting at Gettysburg. But, it is clear
that the only self-determination that Confederate soldiers were fighting for
was that of the southern landed aristocracy to keep other human beings
enslaved. In fighting to preserve the United States, Union soldiers were not
fighting against any other “self-determination.” Mencken was entitled to his
opinion, but he was wrong.

Yesterday’s letter also relies on a statement from British Foreign
Minister (I believe he was actually Foreign “Secretary”), Lord John Russell,
who served during the American Civil War. As our letter writer quotes him, Lord
Russell did not use the term self-determination. Rather he said that thousands
of soldiers were dying to prevent the southern states from acting on the
“principles of independence” that were asserted by the United States against
Great Britain in 1776.

I do not know for sure the context of Lord Russell’s statement quoted in yesterday’s
letter. But, I do know we are engaging in something that I did not learn as a
student in New York City’s public schools during the 1950s. I vaguely remember
learning that the United States government was concerned in 1861 and 1862 that
the Brits might formally recognize the Confederate government and that these
fears were mostly put to rest by the twin military victories at Gettysburg and
Vicksburg in July 1863. But I knew nothing more specific than this. It was not
until recently, when I read “The Education of Henry Adams”—a memoir written in
the third person by the great grandson of John Adams—that I learned “the rest
of the story.”

Henry Adams served as private secretary to his father, Charles Francis
Adams, who was United States Ambassador to England during the 1860s. Before he
left the United States, the younger Adams assumed that because of their
opposition to slavery the British would support the Federal Government in the
Civil War. When he arrived in London, he was shocked to find strong
pro-Confederate sentiment, especially in government circles. Part of this
sentiment grew out of the rather Machiavellian beliefs of Prime Minister Henry
John Temple, the Third Viscount Palmerston, that British interests in North
America would be better served by splitting the United States in two. (The
United States as a single strong nation on the southern border of Canada was
more dangerous to British imperial goals in the northwest than would be two
weaker nations, possibly involved in perpetual war over control of what later
became our western states.)** When the Adams, father and son, arrived in London
they were greeted by the news that the British Government had met with
emissaries from the Confederate States and had recognized the “belligerency” of
the Confederacy. It was in this context that Lord Russell probably made the
statement quoted above. By comparing the Confederacy with the United States in
1776, he was attempting to justify Lord Palmerston’s government supporting what
was a slavery-based nation. Because of his obvious bias, we can’t rely on his
statement as establishing anything.

Further, the “principals of independence” that Lord Russell claimed the
Confederacy was fighting for were totally different than those asserted by the
United States in the Declaration of Independence. In 1776, we were asserting a
right to participate in making the decisions that governed us. We refused to
continue in a nation in which we had no representation in the governing body.
In 1865, the seceding states were not asserting that they had no representation
in the Congress. Rather, they were complaining that they no longer had the
votes to control the Congress. They tried to leave the United States because
they were no longer getting their way.

*However, Mencken was also the author of the following
statement, which raises questions about whether our letter writer should be
relying on him:

“The Jews could
be put down very plausibly as the most unpleasant race ever heard of. As
commonly encountered, they lack many of the qualities that mark the civilized
man: courage, dignity, incorruptibility, ease, confidence. They have vanity
without pride, voluptuousness without taste, and learning without wisdom. Their
fortitude, such as it is, is wasted upon puerile objects, and their charity is
mainly a form of display.”

**Prime Minister Palmerston’s policies almost led to disaster. The United
States discovered that the British were about to provide secret military
assistance to the Confederacy. President Lincoln warned the British that if they
did not stop meddling in the internal affairs of the United States he would be
forced to seek a declaration of war against England.